PORT RESU.MES ED 020 170 TE. ODD 447 WILL SEMANTICS HELP. BY- CORBIN, RICHARD PUB DATE MAR 54 EDRS PRICE MF.40.25 HC -$0.36 7P. DESCRIPTORS- *COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS, *ENGLISH INSTRUCTION, *LANGUAGE ROLE, *SEMANTICS, *SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS, ENGLISH, LANGUAGE USAGE, SEMIOTICS, LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION (THOUGHT TRANSFER), DEFENDENCE UPON SYMBOLS HAS LONG BEEN THE MARK OF CIVILIZED MAN. ALTHOUGH THE MAJORITY OF US HAVE LITTLE -TROUBLE IDENTIFYING AND EVALUATING THE REFERENTS OF PHYSICAL SYMBOLS, WE ARE LESS.SURE WHEN DEALING WITH THE MORE SUBTLE TYPE OF SYMBOLS CALLED WORDS. WE KNOW THAT A ,WORWS MEANING MAY'VARY ACCORDING TO SPEAKER, WRITER,. LISTENER, READER,. OR SITUATION, BUT FEW OF US-WERE TRAINED TO DETECT FACT. FROM _FICTION AND TO ADVISE OTHERS ABOUT THIS DISTINCTION. -NEVERTHELESS, WE, AS ENGLISH TEACHERS, MUSTBE OUR STUDENTS'. INTERPRETERS OF THE THAT WORDS STAND FOR, AND, THEREFORE, TEACHING. ONLY GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC IS' INSUFFICIENT. -SINCE TOMORROW'S CRITICS ARE IN OUR CLASSROOMS TODAY, LET US ,TEACH THEM:ABOUT SEMANTICS AND THE--SYMBOLIC.. 'PROCESS, AND SO.PROVIDE THEM WITH .THE LINGUISTIC INSIGHT TO 4ANDLETHE.PROBLEMS- COMMON TO ALL MEDIA. (THIS - ARTICLE -APPEARED-IN THE "ENGLISH JOURNAL,". VOL. 43' (MARCH 1954)4 .1.307341. 46.) (MM) ors.% no .?:(;.!reitl,,,t rZA , ,Thrn'N r,-trvir -,e'.7.7"0"-F,':*'1,- - "ft: ,-19mr0; .- . , Los Angeles Convention Addresses A Presidential Message. Igill111111.1111.1111milimminimmurnammilmaimpulimumeriammiamirs.. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS; STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION ORPolo. Will SemanticsHelp? RICHARD CORBXN2 "it means just what Ichoose it to "When I use a word," saidHumpty Dumpty [to Alice], meanneither more nor less." preparing this "would-be"Humpty The other day, while How many advertising man Dumpties are there in.this audience? Italk, I asked a friend, an "would-be," because I assumethatwith our local newspaperand a person I say well informed, all of us like to believein the comfortinghad always considered "say what wewhat help, if any,semantics has been to illusion that we always rather what we say." Of course,him in his work. His response was mean and mean Oh, yes, se- sooner orlater, by one means oranother,disconcerting: "Semantics? of this illusionmantics. Something to dowith the Jews, the treacherous character good part of my is brought home to mostof us, and with ahasn't it?" Ironically, a friend's work each day is in animportant properhumility we confess ourverbal admit that very rarelyarea ofsemantic inquirythe effectof sins. We have to human do our words meanall that we intendwords and their meanings upon them to mean, and, onthe other hand,behavior, and vice versa. times our words carry At the outsei., let meoffer a friendly that a great many who recognize in tremendously moremeaning than wewarning to any of you yourselves anantisemanticnot anti- realize or want them to. manifest in Naturally, we teachersof English,Semiticbias such as was is the study ofHumpty Dumpty. Forit is rumored in whose special province for the TV Age words and theireccentric ways, neverthe Revised Mother Goose victimize our think-that Humpty did not fall, asreported in allow this illusion to fact deliber- ingor do we? That morethan a few ofearlier editions, but was in do is rather curious,consid-ately shoved from hiswall. The chief sus- us obviously the unofficial files of ering the notable storeof informationpect, according to words and meaningthe Los Angeles PoliceDepartment, is a about the nature of resented certain that is ours for thestudythough it mustpsychotic symbol that this information iscontextual abuses heaped uponit by the be admitted that reconstructing the rather well shieldedfrom the eye of thevictim. Investigators, casual seeker bythe ominous labelcrime, theorize that in a fitof passion the "Semantics" or, even worse,"Semasi-as yetunidentified symbol, gaining ac- -cess to thewall by offering a forged ology." referent, tumbled theunsuspecting vic- A talk delivered beforethe meeting of the High eminence, then lost National Council of Teacherstim from his worldy School Section of the itself in the passing streamof argot. of English, Los Angeles,November 28, 1953. You are advised,therefore, if you spot Chairman,Englishdepartment,Peekskill (N.Y.) Public Schoolsrvice-president representinga word withsuspicious tendencies to re- secondary schools, NewYork State English Council;port it immediately to"Bromicide," and representing the High School NCTE director it will be placed under closesurveillance Section. WILL SEMANTICS HELP? 131 by the "Current English Forum." This isCamelot and pine for the good old days your simple duty as members of thewhen teaching English was a relatively NCTE. Obviously, we cannot hope tosimple matter: spelling on Mondays, maintain the even tenor of our ways asSilas Marner on Tuesdays and Thurs- teachers of English if criminally inten-days, grammar on Wednesdays, and per- tioned words run loosely about withhaps oral English on Fridays. And some multiple meanings andquestionableof us, possibly, in. Cheevian frustration, referents, tumbling our more prominentscratch our heads and keep on thinking, Humpty Dumpties on their heads. and a few cough and call it fateand But these are but wild and whirlingkeep on drinking. words, my lords. If there is a message Dependence upon symbols has been hiding in this initial nonsense, which Ithe mark of civilized man through the doubt, it is supposed to be this: that acenturies. We have come to intrust our great many of us get ourselves and othersfortunes and our lives often to incompre into a great deal of trouble because wehensibly complex symbols. Our govern- don't understand how our words and ourments, our economic, moral, and social minds operate in communicatingorders, would collapse without them. Not thought. We teachers of English spend aallthese symbols,ofcourse, point good deal of our time polishing the spell-heavenward. Many are false and danger- ing, the pronunciation, the syntax, of ourous symbols, intended to lure us back- boys and girls. Do we devote a compa-ward and down: the swastika, the. Red rable effort to the more essential businessStar, the gold-plated football. Fortunate- of showing them how language works? Ifly, the majority of us have little trouble their speech and writing are mechanical-spotting and sensibly evaluating the ly flawless, are we likely to take time toreferents of i-I :.ese and many more of the remark the prejudice, the single-valuedglamorous physical symbols that sur- judgment, the glittering generality, theround us. runaway abstraction, the twisted meta- We are not so sure of ourselves, phor, that underlie the polished surface?though, when we have to deal with the We show no concern with these mat-more subtle type of symbols called ters,partly,Isuspect, because we"words." It is clear to the most casual haven't the time in our overloadedobserver that the mea,nir ; attached to classes to stir up new and demandingthe word "McCarthy" by one good citi- problems. ,But the real reason goes deeperzen may not square at all with the mean- than that. Most of us have not, ourselves,ing attached to it by another. The teach- been trained to detect and to offer helpfuler who speaks so knowingly of "success" advice to others about the repair of faul-to her thirty pupils will, if she investi- ty thinking. Thus we are not entirely togates, discover thirty different meanings blame if we send out into the world stu-of the word, and none identical with her dents who cannot distinguish fact fromown. Millions of Americans are startled fiction, the Truth from the Big Lie. Into read in their morning papers of a well- our training as teachers of English, weintentioned lady in. Indiana who finds were given many of the tools of our craftnew and ugly depths of meaning in the but not, unfortunately, the special toolromantic old symbol "Robin Hood." needed for this pre-eminently importantMost of the same readers are not at at job. So, many of us dream of Thebes anddisturbed to find on an adjoining page a l32 THE ENGLISH 7OURN,IL warning from another citizen that we Only yesterday, it seems, we spoke in Americans may have to discard our sym-sepulchraltonesofthe problem of bol "democracy" and invent another for"teaching English for the Atomic Age." its place, since the Communists have soHas the time now come to file away in successfully twisted its meaning for theour commodious pedagogical archives peoples who graze hungrily outside thethe conscience-searing units on Hiro- democratic fold. shima and related chaos that have occu- Unless we understand, and teach ourpied us for the last eight years? How children to understand, the process bymany worn and torn curriculum com- which men's minds create symbols andmittees have labored faithfully in the then in turn are shaped by them, we willwaning light of how many afternoons have to continue the uneven struggletrying to keep up with the popular de- against the awful power of the misusedmand for units and syllabi and state- word. If the world of words is sinkingments of aims appropriate to each new fast into a condition of anarchy, as someephemeral slogan or label? Now again, it suggest, or into a state of tyranny, asseems, Clio has audited her accounts. In others say, it will certainly not be savedher files the "Atomic Age" has